Its been a while since I made an update to this series, mostly due to the fact that I've been so unbelievably overwhelmed with how to progress further that I could no longer bring myself to post. Afraid that I'd document myself being unable to achieve what I had believed to be an easy task for myself I sunk deep into the recesses of depression. As much as I'm sure you'd love to hear all about that, I refuse to talk anymore about depressing bullshit because all that ever serves to do is dig deeper into the rabbit hole that I've finally climbed out of.
I feel like a lot of would be developers may have this problem where they've taken classes, read books, watched tutorials, maybe even completed some sample projects, but then when it comes down to working on one of their own creations they have no idea where to start and become overwhelmed. If not common, thats definitely how it has been for me. I took my first Java programming class in high school and Aced it. Finished the final project in about 2-3 days when we were given 2 weeks to complete the task and that would be the last program that I ever followed through till completion.
I'm almost 30 now and have been periodically teaching and reteaching myself basic programming skills ever since, but I never felt like I knew enough to begin doing anything that I really wanted to work on, until 2 days ago when I decided to just fork the closest thing I could find and just figure it out from there. Since then I've come to the conclusion that this really is the only way to learn to dev. There are some basic skills required but once you learn the absolute basics, just hit the ground running on something that you want to do but cant do. Inevitably you'll hit a roadblock or two or 40 and thats where the real learning begins.
Id love to take full credit for this new line of thinking but it actually came after a conversation that I had with the creator of feathercoin, who in my opinion deserves a lot more credit as a key player in the cryptosphere. While it may not be a top cryptocurrency anymore the impact that the feathercoin community forums had on the direction of crypto as a whole is undeniable. Regardless though he recently told me something along the lines of, "Developers do not learn programing languages. They learn to solve problems using programming languages as a tool."
He then told me to "get started on something... anything. Once you hit your first snag you have your first problem to solve."
Updated Roadmap
June 3 - 9, 2018
Introduction
A brief explanation of what this project is and how it came to be.
Javascript
Learn the basics of JavaScript using npm and node.js. No previous programming experience required.
Github
Learn Git and GitHub basics.
June 10, 2018
Overwhelmed
No clue what to do next nor any idea how to apply what is laid out as the next step.
June 11 - 20, 2018
Crippling Depression
Steeming from fear of failure to do something previously thought easy
Self Destructive Behaviors
Hard drugs & hookers
June 21, 2018
Begin Working on Project
That will be Announced at a Later Date
Conclusion
To keep things short and to the point, the idea is to just pick what you want to do. Accept that you cant do it from the very beginning and continue to work on it anyway.